And in All I Loved, I Loved Alone
by Castion-and-Clockwork
Summary: Tony has figured out that he loathes feeling like a mistress, but if it means he gets to love Bruce for just a second longer, than he'll do it. He's willing to hurt one of the nicest women on earth, willing to destroy the team, and willing to pull apart his lover, to feel like anything at all. Its an addiction, but there's no support group for this illness...
1. But You Promised

**Hello beauties! **

**So, I've read quite a few Tony/Bruce stories, and most of the time, if the two are sneaking around, its always Bruce being the mistress which, I see the appeal for. But I got to thinking, what if the roles were reversed? So tada! Here's some complicated, hurt/comfort love and romance for ya'll. :) **

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Bruce was woken by the deafening startle of the phone ringing and Tony swearing under his breath.

"Hello?" He asked as he shifted his weight in bed, lying on his back, using his free hand to scratch at the stubble on his throat. Beside him, Tony huffed a bit angrily and stretched out on his stomach, the Arc reactor peeking out and flooding the sheets with a bright, mellowed light as he drew up on his elbows and let his head droop. Bruce was trying to listen to the woman talking sadly on the line but was getting distracted as he heard his partner crack every vertebra in his spine by rolling his body in two fluid movements, languid and tired as his forehead rested on Bruce's shoulder, shamelessly eavesdropping, ready to count the lies.

"Bruce, you've been at Stark Tower for two days, when are you returning home?" Betty sounded cautious and at the end of her nerves, almost guarding herself for the same answer Bruce always gave her.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. wants these plans finished by the end of the month; we've been pulling all-nighters just so I can come home earlier than expected."

**Lie Number One**- Fury hadn't given them any work to do after the cleanup of Loki's little shenanigan.

**Lie Number Two**- There was no dead line; Bruce could go home whenever he wanted.

"Oh…" Betty let the phrase just pass as a sigh; as if she wanted to say something, but knew it wasn't going to change a thing. Tony kissed Bruce's bare shoulder lightly in the silence. "Is everything going good? I mean, I know you're busy with work but you're doing what you love right? It's worth it?" And Tony knows she's really asking, 'Is it worth never seeing me, and leading me on, and missing out on our family?' but if Bruce understands that, then he covers it well with his smile and soft breathing.

"It's great here. Mr. Stark really keeps the nicest equipment, it's refreshing to work in a lab without people being weary of every step I take. You know I have an awful sweet tooth and this place truly is candy land." He chuckled and Betty matched it fairly real enough. "But you should be getting to bed, you have students to teach."

"Yea cell theory isn't going to lecture itself." Her glittery giggle was interrupted with a yawn that contagiously made Bruce do the same, Tony following suit. "Good night sweet heart, I love you."

There was a pause, and Tony stiffened as he waited for Bruce's reply, nipping lightly at the soft underside of his throat to remind Bruce to answer, carefully. "Good night, Betty." He said with a sweet gasp and ended the call, giving Tony a warning glare.

"_Mr. Stark_ is my _father_, _my_ name is Tony." He interjected darkly, utter disdain dripping from his voice. "You know I hate when people call me _Mr. Stark._"

As if to silent apologize, Bruce brought his hand up and caught Tony's cheek, holding his gaze. "I know… I'm sorry. It's just, the more professional she thinks we are the better. It's safer that way." The billionaire grumbled something and brought his weight to bare down on Bruce fully, the Arc reactor cool and thrumming against Bruce's skin as his fingers trailed up to feel in in the renewed darkness.

"Yea, yea whatever. Still, she sounds like she's slowly catching on. She's a lot of things, but stupid isn't one of them." A beat of silence before, "If you want things professional between us I could file papers for our sexual excursions, even get someone to notarize it." The joke was ill placed and rudely spoken, and Bruce had a feeling Tony deserved to say it, but he still wasn't in the mood for it, not right now.

"Must you act like a jealous girlfriend?" he asked, as he caught the glint in Tony's eyes.

"Must she keep calling you like a nagging wife?" He countered, rising up to make himself appear larger, as if to puff up his feathers. "You've only been here for two days and she's called four times. Doesn't she trust you?"

"Well, apparently not and really, _she shouldn't_ since I _am_ having an affair." Oh, and there was Bruce's first truth of the night.

This was all _just an affair_.

He felt like the two of them were standing on separate ends of the Earth suddenly, looking down at the other and loathing every fiber of their being. For a split second, he thought Tony might throw him out of the bed.

"Stop that." The billionaire chided and kissed at Bruce with a subtle passion, like solving a problem. "Don't call me just an affair and don't think you're doing anything wrong, and don't think you're running back home. You're mine for the weekend." Another kiss, drawn out and almost as soft ad gentle as if it was their first. "You _promised_."

And as Bruce kissed him back, the only sound in the room was the rustle of the covers, the slight spring of the mattress as they moved and the awful echo of something fragile, like a soul or a heart maybe, _breaking._

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**Sooo? How do ya'll like it? Don't worry there will be more, if you guys like the idea and want more, that is. :)**

**What's next? Steamy sex? Anger? That awful morning after? A lovely, "****_forget about it"_**** shower? More of the team? More Pepper or Betty, what? TELL ME! I write to please my readers! So give your opinion! **

**Your loyal and excited writer,**

**Castion-and-Clockwork**


	2. Karma, Thou Art A Heartless Bitch

**What's this? A new chapter? **

**I'm so sorry for how long this took to get out to you guys, I've been dabbling in other fandoms! *Gasp* **

**Anyway, here's more angst and emotions for those of you who wanted Mistress!Tony.**

**Warnings: Ummm...Tony's mouth and sad elements, though its not that bad really. So enjoy and comment my beauties!:)**

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_"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed."_

Tony couldn't quite pin the name of the man who had said the quote, but he does believe it, whole heartedly so as the thought drifts around his lethargic mind.

"Jarvis, shower please, hot." He mumbled in the fog of an awful hangover, stepping onto the cold tile naked and painfully aware of the lonesome space his voice echoes in.

"Of course, sir." The shower drowned out the other thoughts Tony may have had flitting weakly about as he tried to stir awake, turning his face into the stream and wondering if he could just melt with the heat of the water and steam and slide down the drain and out of existence.

Maybe then he wouldn't have to wake up to a cold and empty bed.

_No note._

_No excuse._

_No promise._

Tony blew out a breath he didn't know he was holding as he turned and cracked his neck, rolling his shoulders and letting the kinks work themselves from his sore muscles. "_Fuck me."_ He groaned as the steam fogged the glass doors, clouding his judgment as he starts to believe that maybe all his sleeping around, pulling heartstrings and staggering, one night stands had finally caught up with him.

This was his payment for all the infidelity.

A knock on the door startled him, making the light of the arc reactor flicker a bit as he wiped the water from his eyes and squinted through the steaming bathroom at the dappled, prim woman who's shaking her head, eye brows raised in either sympathy or understanding.

Tony wasn't sure which it was.

Or which was better.

"It's ten in the morning." She seemed to scold softly, as she offered him a towel and admired the ceiling as he stepped out on the cold tile and dried off.

"You're not my girlfriend anymore; I bet Happy could use some nagging." He bit down on his words a bit more harshly than he meant, but the distinguished Pepper Pots didn't budge, only locked eyes with him as Tony wrapped the towel around his waist and finally gave a long sigh. "Thanks for coming over."

She smiled at the indulgent emotion he was allowing to soften his facade, the lines crinkling around her eyes the way they used to, back on the few occasions he tried to make her the happiest to his ability. He missed smiles like that.

"Jarvis buzzed me, said you woke with an elevated heart rate and asked for a hot shower. I've known you long enough to know what that means." She opened the door and let him lead her to the kitchenette, watching I slight disapproval as he snatched two glasses from the cupboard and tried not to face her as he answered starkly.

"I could have been having a steamy, sexy dream and needed a bit of a release." He gave a winded chuckle as he hid his head in the freezer and scooped out ice, turning for the bottle of Smirnoff just as Pepper grabbed his hand, her thin fingers grasping in a pleading, whispering way, and if he was brave enough to look her in the eye, he would see the beginnings of questions and truth pillowing on unshed tears. But Tony didn't have the heart to face her. Not after all he had put her through.

_Not after he sat there for years letting her feel like this._

She let him loose then, tucking her hands back in her lap as she sat on one of the tall barstools, and Tony let go of the bottle's neck and filled the cups instead with water. "It's nothing." He finally tried, swallowing down his glass and sliding the other toward her.

"Tony I told you this was-"

He turned on her then like a wounded animal, anger evident in the whites of his knuckled round the glass, his fiery eyes, the jagged truth rouging his voice. "I know, ok, I know! He's been seeing her on the side, she's pining for the love they had cultivated through all those tender years in college, ya, well here I am, giving away one of the greatest things I have! I have to let her have him, watch as he willingly goes back to _her_." The bitterness made his tone deep and something darker than Pepper had ever had to quell in him before. "Bruce is a genius with trust issues and a psychological fuck up list as long as mine, but why does he have to go to _her_?" Tony yelled, a fist striking the counter, shaking Pepper's glass. As he fumed and breathed in hot and heavy, livid and wretched, she just looked on in gentle sympathy.

_Because she had been here before_.

Pepper knew what it was like to watch the sun set on another planet's horizon and warm a separate ecosystem.

"Tony, relationships are difficult. There aren't soul mates, where you only love one person 100% of the time, all the time. I can't speak for Bruce, nor am I defending him. I'm just saying that sometimes people don't know what they're feeling and are afraid to do anything. Betty is a longtime friend of his, and I know you and him have been inseparable since the Loki incident. He's heavily invested in both of you." She reached out a confident hand and covered his weak fist on the table, leaning forward to catch his line of sight. "But you can't keep doing this to yourself. You need to decide what _you_ can handle and what _you_ want. Because stringing yourself along and playing nice will only hurt you in the long run."

And suddenly Tony felt like he couldn't breathe, like his lungs were gallon jugs of ice water hanging heavy in his chest as he tried not to mourn the fact that Pepper was speaking from experience.

_Because she had moved on from him and found something stable and healthy. _

But Bruce _was_ his stability, he was the force that woke Tony up in the lazy summer mornings with soft kisses and tender caresses, he was the hands that cooked exotic dishes and laughed over a small glass of wine on Fancy Friday Nights, when Tony would decorate the flat with glittering candle light and fragrant rose petals he had cultivated in the lab. It was Bruce who nudged him gently while they worked in R&D and corrected his equations, was the voice scolding him when he didn't weld with his goggles on, was the light brush of fingers that passed him papers and power tools and it was Bruce who Tony had flown all the way around the world to find because Bruce had run away after the first time they had sex.

And after two weeks of searching, of shirking all his duties and worrying until he swore his hair was graying he found Banner in a small town in the middle of nowhere, holding the arthritic, gnarled hands of a sick man as he passed away with chocked gasps. He watched the doctor's eyes cloud with some unknown emotion as he pulled the cot's tattered sheet over the man, covering the death in cotton white. Tony had tread carefully forward, watching, almost out of body, as the elderly wife embraced Bruce and seemed to thank him in a clipped, forgiving language and kneeled by the bed to pray.

Bruce turned then and saw Tony standing there.

There was no flicker of recognition. No excited, half smile that lit his eyes or dry humor to comfort the blow.

All he did was take Tony's hand when it was offered and let himself be lead outside the hut, his fingers warmly calloused, familiar, and holding onto Tony for dear life. And when Tony had gotten them safely back onto a jet New York bound, Bruce had let his forehead rest on Tony's shoulder and sobbed until he finally succumbed to sleep.

He rolled the memory off his shoulders and closed his eyes in pain. "I told him….." Tony shook his head as if to chastise his younger self for being a fool. "I told him I wanted him no matter what that meant. I was scared that if I suddenly sprung all this serious commitment on him, that he'd run again. I just wanted…this was supposed to be easy because_, I don't know_, I just thought maybe he'd just say that I was all he needed. I wanted him to want to stay here, with me." His voice was low and gravelly as he pressed his forehead to their joined hands, lips close to the marble counter top as he whispered, "_And I messed it all up." _

And if Pepper felt his tears on her fingertips, then she didn't say a word.

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**Is anyone even out there still reading?**

**I hope so, because I'm looking forward to updating and fleshing this story out some ore. I'm not going to lie, I have no clue where this is going, nor do I even believe I'm doing n ok job even telling this broken story, but I'm willing to accept any hints, pointers and help. :) So what do you want to see? TELL ME!**

**Yours Truly,**

**Castion-and-Clockwork. **


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